


Panic (On The Streets Of London)

by the17thtearoom



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), F/M, Fluff and Crack, IDENTITY SHENANIGANS, Secret Identity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2019-10-07
Packaged: 2020-11-25 20:37:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20918252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the17thtearoom/pseuds/the17thtearoom
Summary: On a weekend away in London, Marinette desperately hides her secret identity from an overzealous Damian, hot on the trail of the Ladybug herself. (It's the wrong trail entirely, but she's hardly about to tell him that, is she?)





	Panic (On The Streets Of London)

**Author's Note:**

> master-jarrus on Tumblr dared me to write this (and sorry that it took me a while to get around to it)! It's based on a collection of posts I made about various Ladybug or Batman related items coming into my charity shop since I started writing my other Daminette story. This story is completely unconnected to that one.

Marinette and Damian have been friends for years and dating for one, but that doesn't mean she has to tell him _everything_. Her life as Ladybug, for example, remains undisclosed. She doesn't think about about this fact all that much, and certainly doesn't when he extends to her an invitation for a weekend away in London over the Christmas period. Chat Noir promises to look after Paris in her absence and Carapace backs him up, so she's remarkably tranquil on the flight over. No, it isn't until she settles next to him in the black cab, a content little smile on her face, that she realises she may have a problem.

Because Damian turns to her, a certain fire in his eyes, and says, "Marinette, I have good reason to believe that the hero, Ladybug, is here in London somewhere." Her smile freezes and she begins to sweat. Damian awaits a response.

_Well shit_.

* * *

The hotel is one of London's finest, he tells her after checking in and heading up to their floor in a lift big enough to live in and glitzy enough to make Chloe Bourgeois salivate. This is probably true, but Marinette barely notices. She's too busy panicking to notice.

Instead, she watches him as he marches into their hotel room ahead of her and throws his Armani duffel bag onto the bed. He rifles through it and withdraws a foldout chart of... England's ladybirds? Marinette blinks at it. What does this have to do with anything?

"_This_. This has to do with _everything_." He's brandishing it like a sword, swishing the glossy white foldout to and fro. "It details all the ladybugs native to England. I found it not long after I first devised my theory. _This_ is how we're going to find Ladybug."

"I'm not sure I follow." He's taking about _theories_ now? She hasn't even had the time to put down her own bag, and he's already off on one. "Damian -"

"Ladybug is in London." Yes she is. "She moved here not long ago." Technically true. "And I have reason to believe she's in great danger." Well, she - Wait, _what?_

"What do you mean she's in danger?" Marinette asks, her voice reaching a higher register than she would care to admit in her alarm.

"I think there's someone seeking out the worlds' heroes," Damian says, almost raving. "He tracks them down, tells them he knows their true identity and blackmails them, something in exchange for their continued anonymity."

"What makes you think that?" He waves the question away, too agitated to answer. "Damian, _what am I doing here?"_

He looks at her like he's only just realised he's dragged her all the way to London on a whim. "I wanted to spend time with you," he says, so plainly honest that it makes her go pink.

"Okay," she sighs, flopping back onto the bed. "Show me what you've got."

Just as he's about to launch into a full expose, he stills and turns around to her. She realises what she said the second she sees the mischievous spark in his eyes, and he's smirking.

Dropping the chart to the floor, he begins unbuttoning his pea coat. "Oh, I _intend_ to."

* * *

In hindsight, the box of candy sticks was a mistake. It was very early in the morning, London was coming to life beneath a dreary sky, and a half-comatose Marinette had simply been in search of a small pick-me-up, something to help her cope with her morning-person boyfriend; despite the promising results of the night previous, it seems Damian is still hellbent on tracking Ladybug down. The candy sticks were the cheapest treat the newsagents was selling. That was all.

How was she supposed to know that every box came with a temporary tattoo? And wasn't it just her luck (thank you, _Tikki_) that her tattoo would be a little cartoon ladybug. Or no, sorry. A _ladybird_. Chucking the tattoo onto the table as Damian chokes on his breakfast espresso, wide-eyed and pointing, Marinette curses London. Fucking London, with its ladybirds and - and _candy sticks_.

Why is it always her?

"Ladybug must know we're trying to help!" Damian says once he's stopped choking to death. "She's trying to communicate with us!"

I can assure you she isn't, Marinette thinks but doesn't say. Instead, she plucks a candy stick from the packet and crunches it down as Damian rhapsodises over the tattoo and holds it aloft, like a priest presenting the body of Christ to their flock.

This is going to be a _long_ weekend.

* * *

The one time during the whole trip that she's almost busted, it's a yoyo's fault, because of course it is. The yoyo in question is green and specially weighted so it always returns to the hand of its user. Marinette scoffs, tossing the thing about experimentally. She doesn't need the help of strategically placed weights to control _her_ yoyo, and this thing's just a cheap hunk of plastic. Nonetheless she's bored, so she tries to have some fun with it.

She tosses it up in the air and catches it again while she waits for Damian to be done interrogating the poor market stall owner, about whether or not he's noticed any superhero sightings in the area recently ("Are you off your rocker? England don't exactly _do_ superheroes, son.") and whether any sinister men in trench coats have swept the area, looking for a superhero themselves. ("This an MI5 thing? I don't want nothin' to do with all that.") She surprisingly gets into a rhythm with it. One that's a pale imitation of the rapport she has with _her_ yoyo, but a rhythm all the same. She catches and tosses and performs trick after trick -

Only to drop the ball entirely when she happens to glance down and see Damian gaping at her, hands stuffed in his pockets. The yoyo falls from the sky and bonks her on the head (and _damn_ does that hurt. This plastic yoyo is about ten times heavier than _hers_.)

"I - Ah - So you finished talking to the stall's owner." She winds up the string, sharpish, and returns it to its original place. "Any luck?" He doesn't answer. She's not sure that he can. He's still gaping at her. "Lets go and see Big Ben, then!" she says, hooking her arm through the crook of his and leading him away.

It's not until their tour of the city brings them to the Tower of London and she jokingly suggests stealing a raven that he snaps from his yoyo-induced stupor, to lecture her on the long and proud history of the Ravenmaster and his duty to the birds. Marinette forces down a smile and listens to his speech with a graveness that he doesn't seem to realise is a joke. Whatever. That was a close enough shave for her liking.

* * *

Marinette has never met someone who hates McDonald's like Damian does. They stop in the next day because she likes their strawberry milkshakes, and if she's going to spend an entire second day in one of the world's most historic cities helping her boyfriend look for a superhero who essentially doesn't even exist, she's getting her milkshake. Honestly. She could be visiting the West End.

They join the queue and the whole time he's grimacing about the place like it's going to give him a disease. When she gets to the front of the line to order her drink, he sucks in a sudden breath and starts choking again.

"Oh, for goodness' sake Damian," she begins, turning to him. "We'll be eating dinner at the hotel, it's not like I'm asking you to stay here." But he's not looking at her. He's looking at a little girl with a Happy Meal. "Damian, what -"

"_Curses_," he curses, turning to face her. "Do you see that - that - _thing?"_

"Damian, you can't talk about children like that."

"What? _No!_ Not the child, the _puzzle_." He's so spitting mad that she almost doesn't want to know, but she turns to look anyway, and -

Oh. The kid got a Lego Batman puzzle in her meal. It features the titular Gotham hero, and one of the Robins. Spoiler, she thinks. Glancing from the puzzle to the girl to Damian, who looks ready to throw hands, Marinette can officially say she has never felt so lost.

"I'm... not sure what you're getting at, Damian."

"I -" He breaks off, looks at her for a long second, then purses his lips together, just-bit-into-a-lemon tight. "Never mind."

"What?"

He turns to stalk from the building, so snatching up her milkshake from the counter the second the serving girl places it down, Marinette sprints after him, calling his name. When she finally catches up to him he's marching past Nelson's Column, scattering an enormous flock of pigeons as he goes.

He's glaring at anything that moves and muttering to himself, "The _disrespect_. Batman dedicates his life to fighting crime and they _turn him into a Lego set._" Marinette, sufficiently able to keep up with him now that he's realised she's there and has slowed accordingly, has to admit her surprise. She had no idea her boyfriend had such strong feelings for Batman.

"Come on, cheer up!" she says, nudging him in the side. "We're going home tomorrow morning, we have to do something. I want Thai food, do you want Thai food?"

He doesn't, as it turns out. There's a display on ladybugs in the Natural History Museum he wants to cross-examine alongside the chart he brought over, and Marinette briefly considers jumping into the Thames.

* * *

Samuel Johnson once said that when you're tired of London you're tired of life, but what are you supposed to do when you're tired of both? Apart from their first night (very good night. _Very_ good night indeed) this entire trip has consisted of Marinette trailing around after her loose canon boyfriend, trying to "help" him find Ladybug and stop him from committing an international incident. (_Not_ as easy as it sounds.)

She's been careful to stop him from finding anything that might put him on the correct trail, and aside from the incident with the yoyo at the Camden Markets she's done a top notch job, if she does say so herself.

Even so, she flew to London for this. She flew to London, England for this, _a different country_, and now it's the night before they're due to go home, and she's sat alone in their hotel room, because Damian had one last lead he wanted to investigate before giving up and leaving Ladybug to her fate. (Ladybug is very grateful for this.) She tries not to get huffy for a moment, then says screw it and huffs away to herself, flicking through the TV channels absently and waiting for Damian to get back so they can go to the restaurant downstairs. He's an ass, he can buy her dinner.

The door opens, _two hours_ after he left, and Damian is there, smiling away to himself secretively. Marinette wonders just what he thinks he's sussed out on his final London adventure but before she can ask, he says, "Get your coat."

Halfway up off the bed before he had spoken, she stops. "Why?" He's shifting from foot to foot in the doorway, which is the most Damian ever shows his excitement, and she thinks he might have actually _found_ something. "Why, Damian?"

"Don't ask questions, just come with me!"

Wary, she does, slipping into her black cape jacket and hurrying after him. He takes her by the hand and leads her... Up the stairs. And up another set, and another and another...

Until they're at the top.

"Damian, I don't think we're allowed to be here," she says, glancing around anxiously in case a squadron of bellhops come charging around the corner to arrest them, or interrogate them, or - or -

"It's alright," he says, cutting off her gradually escalating mind theater performance. He's speaking softly and smiling softly,_ at her_, like the moon to the sun, and she loses her breath. He's up to something.

"Where have you been for the last few hours, Damian?" she asks, lowering her tone so it matches his. Rather than answer, he pushes open the door that leads to the roof. She peers around.

Oh. Now she has her answer.

"I know this wasn't the weekend you had in mind when you said yes to coming along," he says in that same quiet tone, following her out onto the rooftop where he's set out a table and two chairs. Tiny lights decorate the area and a bottle of wine chills in an ice bucket off to the side. Marinette doesn't know what to say, so instead she just turns back to him. He's gazing at her with such utter sincerity that she's rendered breathless for the second time in as many minutes.

"Damian..."

"I wanted to apologise for that, but I - Well, you know what I'm like with words, habibti. I'm much better with actions." She nods, wordless herself right now. "Would you like to sit down? Our dinner's under a hot plate, but it _is_ December, and we've still got a matinee performance of the Phantom of the Opera to catch in an hour."

"And what _is_ dinner?" she asks, beginning to smile as he leads her to the table and pushes her chair in for her.

Opening the bottle of wine and pouring two glasses, he says, "I ordered it in from Ibiza."

She chokes on her first sip. "_The island?_"

"No, the Thai take out place across the street. That's what it's called."

Rather than let him linger on _the island?_, because he's beginning to smirk at her, she asks, "Did you get duck?"

"I did."

"_And_ garlic pepper?"

"Of course, I'm not an animal. What do you think of the wine?"

She's hardly an expert, so she just says, "Great! It's - It's very fruity, and corky..."

"Have you had your connoisseur license for _many_ years, Miss Dupain-Cheng?"

"Why, are you impressed?"

"Infinitely."

He's smiling and leaning in closer to her. The candle lighting their small, intimate little corner of the world, is caged in an ornate glass box to stop the wind from putting it out, but Marinette swears in that moment that it could warm her for the rest of her life. Damian presses his lips to hers, and her eyes slide shut.

Or maybe it's just the wine.


End file.
